


Tamarind Sodas and Mango Slices with Tabasco

by beanarie



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, Teen Pregnancy, background Joan/Liam, established bromance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 07:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/pseuds/beanarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan gets pregnant her senior year of high school and the father doesn't stick around. But, the same as she did with her dad's affair, getting into Columbia, and being Sherlock Holmes's best friend, she deals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tamarind Sodas and Mango Slices with Tabasco

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt by a lovely anon begat [this gifset](http://beanarie.tumblr.com/post/54921396752/elementary-high-school-au-joan-is-pregnant-out), which, I want to pinch them for handing me my own personal Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in potential fic form. After that I couldn't stop thinking, "Well, Joan would probably give the baby up." which I've not written before, though I've knocked up pretty much all my fandoms, and then this happened.

Joan is six weeks pregnant. There are two positive home tests lying on her dresser next to her early acceptance letter from Columbia.

Liam says, "Whoa" and "I need some time to think about this". She knows instinctively he has to decide between offering her money and a ride home from the clinic, or asking her to marry him. He's a simple guy. He won't acknowledge any other options.

Joan is two months pregnant. Sherlock has been pointedly chewing on his cheek every time she finds an excuse to avoid the cafeteria. She figures she'll let him hold it in until he can't anymore. The explosion is sure to be entertaining. 

Liam hasn't answered her last fourteen texts. He walks right by her in the halls.

Fuck him. She decides on her own.

"There are parents out there with no kids. I can change that for someone." She shrugs, suddenly self-conscious now that she has something of an audience. "It's not like I'm going anywhere for the next thirty weeks."

Her mom's face crumples, even as she nods. She kisses Joan's forehead. "No matter how this ends up, no matter what happens, remember that I'm really, really proud of you."

It's months before Joan realizes her words can be taken at face value and she isn't just saying how much she hopes Joan will change her mind.

Joan is four months pregnant, swallowing her emerging stomach with baggy sweaters to put off the moment of truth as long as possible. Liam's younger brother shoves her against a row of lockers and calls her a fucking slut. 

Sherlock has his explosion. It isn't even a little bit entertaining. 

She screams herself hoarse telling him to stop, leave the kid alone. (He has to wear a brace on his wrist for three weeks. Half of that has gone by before she'll talk to him again.)

It comes out that Liam, panicking because she's starting to show, told his family that Joan lied about him being the father. She wonders how she ever liked that boy's smile, or thought he had even the smallest shred of decency in him.

Joan is five months pregnant, officially done with websites that explain the baby's size by comparing it to edible objects. Em refuses to hide how confused she is by the whole situation. "I just don't get it," she says, as the old couple sharing their row in the theater give Joan a steady stream of judgment through their eyes. "Adoption is a great thing, seriously, amazing. But you're choosing to put yourself through _all this_ , even though you knew you didn't have to."

Carrie bites her lip like she has an opinion she won't share, while Hope focuses on the screen as though it's showing something other than the ads for local businesses they put on before the previews. "You know what?" Joan says. "I just remembered I already saw this movie."

The theater is only two stops from Sherlock's place. Ms. Hudson makes her decaffeinated Darjeeling (which Joan suspects is a recent purchase), and forbids Sherlock from taking Joan to set a trap for the guy who's been stealing bikes near their favorite coffee shop. "I don't care if he's 'just a bicycle thief', honey. A criminal is a criminal!"

Joan is six months pregnant. On the subway people are giving up their seats, or visibly pretending they don't see her. Her dad takes her to Battery Park, and they eat overstuffed deli sandwiches and watch the ferries take off for Liberty Island.

"I've never known anyone who's done this, given away their child," he says, and she puts the remainder of her roast beef on the bench next to her. "But I can say this. The day the judge said you and your brother could take my name..." He puts his hand over her knee and squeezes. "There's no duplicating that feeling. Despite how things ended up with your mom, and, you know, the rest." Joan doesn't force him to un-vague his language, though she has a brief flash of the time she told him he'd betrayed the entire family. "Best day of my life, kiddo." 

The wiry hairs on his knuckles scratch at her skin when he brushes her cheek, but she doesn't turn away. She's done enough of that.

"The agency's shown you a bunch of different parents," he says.

"I know," she says, frowning. "I know, I just- They have to _feel_ right."

He offers one of his sweet potato chips. "Cold feet are okay, Joanie."

She snatches the whole bag. "Shut up. My feet are totally toasty." She will find her people. She has no doubt about that.

Joan is seven months pregnant, and Sherlock is crying on her bedroom floor quietly enough for her to retain plausible deniability. Ms. Hudson has been extra solicitous the past few days, which means his dad did something (or _didn't_ do something, as is most often the case).

Joan makes her way over to his sleeping bag, lets him rest his head on her knee, and strokes his hair until he settles down. 

_Moms do this_ , she thinks. _And I'm good at it_. 

Then Sherlock snuggles into her and sighs brokenly, and she remembers. When Sherlock is out, it's Ms. Hudson who texts quotes from her favorite philosophers every hour and demands he name the source, reminding him that someone out there cares if he's getting drunk or high. It's Joan's mom who helps him with his Mandarin and brings him something to drink when he's conducting night surveillance or experiments in acceleration from their roof. And it's Sherlock's father who left him in pieces and sent him across an ocean alone. There's a lot to be said for the families you find.

Four days later, the agency puts her in touch with Ricky, whose family fled Vietnam during the war, and Angelica, who was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in the Bronx, like Hope. Joan and her mom visit their home in Philadelphia. Everyone titters awkwardly through a conversation that lasts three times longer than the clock indicates. The highlight is Angelica's stories about being a probation officer. Ricky is a little bit of a tightass, but owning a chain of comic book stores is a point in his favor. He's also a Met fan. If Joan believed in signs, that would be one.

She gives them the thumbs up right before she leaves the house, so she can smile to herself at the sound of their celebrating.

Joan is eight months pregnant, and she misses her cute clothes, though it's nice to just throw on Oren's hand-me-downs and go. She buys one maternity outfit, a dress for graduation. She walks on stage beaming and holds her diploma above her head, ignoring the side-eyes and snickering.

She can tell from the angle of her mom's camera that vast majority of her photos will be above the waist. And she is absolutely fine with that.

Sherlock is being a wallflower, so she pinches him. "It's not my fault you're younger than me. If you actually sat down and did the work, you'd get through your junior _and_ senior year before I'm even done with my first semester."

Joan is nine months pregnant. She spends most of the night awake in bed, time she uses to talk to her grandfather in Taipei, research random things for Sherlock, and study for Columbia's placement tests. Liam corners her while she's taking a walk in her neighborhood. He pulls his hand back halfway to her stomach. "God, I bet it's, like, moving around in there, isn't it?"

She wishes for a season other than summer. It would be lovely to have a giant winter coat to close around herself. "What do you want, Liam?"

"Look, I know I signed all that lawyer stuff a while back-"

Joan's throat constricts, letting out only a weak, pathetic, "No." 

"My mom won't let her grandchild be raised by strangers. She wants to take it."

Ricky and Angelica have been occupying a friend's apartment in New York for almost a week now. They're coming over tomorrow to accompany her to the OB. Joan's last ultrasound is Angelica's Facebook profile pic. " _No_ ," she says, her eyes burning and tearing against her will. "Fuck you."

He rolls his eyes like she's being hormonal. "Joanie, come on now. You're giving the kid up so you can go to a fancy Ivy League school. Why do you even care?" 

She punches him in the face, then goes home and throws things, screaming and crying so hard she can barely get the story out to her family.

A meeting happens between the adults; Liam's mom gives up. Joan has no idea how or why. She doesn't ask, either.

Joan is nine and a half months pregnant, and she can't stop grimacing and rubbing her stomach. Sherlock arrives with tamarind sodas from the bodega around the corner, and after a while he does one of his mouth quirks. "So we're, uh, 100 percent certain you're not in labor, correct?"

"Shit." Joan had been blaming the mango slices with hot sauce everyone kept telling her to quit eating.

Angelica comes over and helps the time pass while they wait for the contractions to get closer together. For a few hours, Joan is able to join in the rounds of trivia and Twenty Questions. Eventually she's screeching at her doctor over the phone. "No, really, this thing is ready to go, I fucking swear." Sherlock is trying to be helpful, but he's vibrating with unspent energy and even Joan's mom starts tightening her jaw every time he forgets he has an inside voice. Angelica keeps finding things for him to do, and she doesn't snap at him once. Joan doesn't need confirmation like that at this point, but it helps. 

In the hospital, when it's over, the nurse holds this screaming baby up to her face. Joan takes in the little red nose, the striped blanket and tiny blue hat, and says, "Okay, now take him out to his mom and dad."

His name is Victor. They tell Joan the next day as they walk a few feet off hospital property to make the official hand-over. "I like that," Joan says, nodding, not reaching for his flailing hands. "He's a winner." Ricky and Angelica cry as they hug Joan. They tell her how much she'll always mean to them. Joan reminds herself to show her teeth when she smiles.

Her parents (both of them, together, which would be weird if she were capable of examining it) drive her home, and she goes straight to bed. Sherlock texts his assurances he won't come by if she isn't up for company, Sherlock-speak for _call me the second you feel okay enough please please please call me_. 

Joan's mom leaves a glass of water on the night stand and climbs in with Joan. "It's been two days, baby. No regrets?"

Joan wraps her arms around her mom's waist, shaking her head against her mom's shoulder. "None."

"Good." She chuckles as she strokes Joan's hair. "You should know I've been tasked with making sure you're not displaying any of the key signs of Post-Partum Depression."

"Oh, God." Joan snorts, and feels something loosen inside. "Sherlock."

"Mm-hm." Her mom runs a hand down her back. "Do you want to come down for dinner, Joanie?"

Joan opens her mouth to say she hasn't yet made up for the months of messed up circadian rhythms, but the yawn that comes out instead does the job. "Tomorrow," she says. 

"I'll hold you to that."

"Okay." 

Her mom kisses her on the forehead and starts to pull away. Joan holds on tighter. "Mom?" she whispers, struggling, emotions she still can't identify threatening to drag her under. 

He'll be driving them crazy already, with that animalistic newborn bleating, like a baby goat being poked by a sharp stick. In a few weeks, his cheeks will plump up. They'll take him to a professional photographer with a selection of weird marbled backgrounds. They'll frame the biggest print and distribute wallet-sized and 3x5 copies to the closest members of their family. 

They'll send her one. At the time it had seemed like a good idea to say yes to pictures.

As soon as Joan gets out of bed, she puts her headphones in and she walks. Then she walks quickly with headphones in. She stays still for the duration of two therapy sessions--a favor from her former guidance counselor--both of which go nowhere, but she doesn't blame Candace. Then she's jogging with headphones in.

Joan blocks out the world for a half hour, forty-five minutes, an hour, two. Sometimes it isn't even that hard to become part of it again.

"You still talk less than usual," Sherlock says. Everyone else is satisfied she's talking at all. He has his own deadlines for the reestablishment of status quo. She isn't shocked.

Joan doesn't roll her eyes. It would take them off her reading. They hadn't had plans to meet up today; he'd simply tracked her down in the library and plopped himself down at her table.

"It sometimes helps those grieving to..." 

She means to butt in to correct him that she isn't grieving, but she can't decide how to time it so that her words will actually be believed. Joan frowns. She's never explained this lingering feeling, as though she did something thoughtless, inadvertent and terrible that she has yet to take punishment for, like she left the gas on and when she gets home she'll see that she burned her house down. 

Months later, she knows how to articulate it--she just doesn't want to. If she had, she would have told her mom, Candace, Oren, Ms. Hudson, her dad... there's no shortage of people who would have listened. There's also a picture shoved under a stack of t-shirts in her dresser drawer of a stone-faced little boy too stubborn to smile before he's damn well good and ready. No one could carry him for her. She can work through her feelings about it in her own time. As long as she's getting on with her life, no one should have any complaints about how she chooses to heal.

"...have a reminder of what was lost. You could get a tattoo?" 

When she looks up from her work, finally, Sherlock is biting his lip. She lets him see her smile, more indulgent than exasperated. "Bring this up when I don't have midterms looming, okay?"


End file.
